


cold blooded

by SyntheticRevenge



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: F/F, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, I don't know how spaceships work and at this point I'm too afraid to ask, Literally have no idea how to tag this, Other, excessive violin mentions, is this about Jonny? no not at all. is there Jonny Angst? yes. I'm a hopeless case.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26134315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntheticRevenge/pseuds/SyntheticRevenge
Summary: On violin and veins, or, how Nastya Rasputina finally got warm again.
Relationships: Dr Carmilla & Nastya Rasputina, Jonny d'Ville & Nastya Rasputina, The Aurora/Nastya Rasputina
Comments: 14
Kudos: 84





	cold blooded

**Author's Note:**

> This is short and scattered and kinda dumb but fuuuuck me I was having Nastya/Aurora feelings. Hope you enjoy!

Nastya’s fingers are too numb to press down into the strings, and she shivers so hard the bow chops across them gracelessly and makes horrific noises, so she puts the violin down and blows into her hands and hopes this won’t be forever.

She used to think her home was cold, until her veins started pumping metal, and now she knows she never really knew cold. She freezes inside out now. She shakes hard enough words fall out of her mind, so she doesn’t know the name of the man tossing his coat and several blankets on her with pity twisting his face. She both aches with gratitude and wishes she could tell him it’s stupid and futile without fear of biting her tongue off.

The ship she woke up on is small and dark and stained with her former blood. The man carries her through a short hallway to the engine room, clearly hoping it’ll warm her. It doesn’t. She wasn’t expecting it to, but he sighs in frustration when she doesn’t stop shivering, digs his hands into his hair, mutters furiously to himself, and leaves.

She drags herself over to an engine core and sits curled up against it until the woman who either saved or kidnapped her--or both, why not both--comes in, presses a comforting hand to her forehead, brushes her hair back. Her skin’s just as cold as Nastya’s, and Nastya flinches away, but the woman holds her chin.

She says something like  _ I’ll fix it _ . Every flight instinct in Nastya’s numb, leaden body activates, but there’s nothing she can do. She can only let herself be carried back to the bloodstained room like a child, can only lie there and shiver and miss music and miss home and miss the robot she was building and miss her father’s ship and miss her family and miss being properly alive and miss and miss and miss.

*

Her blood doesn’t run any warmer, even after everything Carmilla tweaked and injected and broke shit in frustration over, but she’s learning to work around the shivering. She can almost play again if she takes it slow enough, and she can hear properly, can speak without taking her tongue off.

Time doesn’t mean anything when you’re not alive. She doesn’t leave the ship, which Carmilla says doesn’t have a name. Every ship should have a name, even small, dark, shitty ones.

It doesn’t really matter. Jonny comes back to the ship one night in what Nastya now recognizes as one of his dangerous, manic moods, wasted, delighted, a bullet hole in his head rapidly sealing itself. He tells Carmilla he got them a new ship, and he flashes Nastya a rabid smile and a wink. 

He looks like he’s expecting a pat on the back, a  _ who’s a good boy _ from his creator, but all Carmilla says is “Finally”, tight-lipped, and he doesn’t deflate, just goes dark and bites the corner of his lip bloody. 

He takes them to the new ship. Nastya’s never seen a world other than Cyberia, and the short walk overwhelms her, color and light after unknown, untold quantities of darkness. She smiles to herself, trailing behind, and then she sees the new ship.

She’s huge and beautiful, and when Jonny unlocks her, she makes a noise like she’s welcoming Nastya home.

“What’s her name?” Nastya asks, breathless with wonder. “Please tell me she has a name.”

Jonny smirks, viciously. “Aurora.”

“Hello, Aurora,” Nastya says, softly, running a numb hand over her side, and the metal almost buzzes under her like Aurora’s saying hello back. 

*

Nastya takes her violin into Aurora’s veins. She’s small enough to fit in the vents, and they seem to pulse and curl around her, like the gentle beating of a heart, reassuring and soft. It gets stronger as she winds closer to what must be Aurora’s heart.

Her heart is--all the vents in the ship open to it, so it must be what produces the radiant heat, but there’s no door, no other way in. Most would call it a design flaw. Nastya thinks it’s perfect. It’s a huge room, with a core that--it’s not organic, not quite, but it looks alive. Nastya thinks she can almost hear Aurora breathing.

Nastya licks her lips to wet them enough to speak. “Can I play for you?” She thinks Aurora might listen, and the closer she ventures to the heart, the warmer her blood runs. She can almost feel her fingers like she used to, not just as wooden extremities weighing her hands down.

Aurora doesn’t speak, but there’s a surge of heat that Nastya feels down to her bones. She thinks it might mean  _ yes _ , so she raises the violin to her chin and plays. Slowly, like she’s been practicing, but her fingers move right again, and she speeds up. She plays Aurora an old Cyberian lullaby, and when she’s finished, when she drops the violin to her side again, there’s another surge of heat. Quicker. More insistent.

Nastya understands it instinctively.  _ Again _ . So she plays it again, and again, until her fingers dance like they always used to, until her bow becomes fluid, until she starts to feel like herself and not just a dead girl in a dead man’s coat.

She plays until her fingers bleed quicksilver, and then she remembers, and she stops. She rests her violin and bow on the ground. “Thank you, Aurora,” she says, and then tentatively approaches the heart. 

She puts her palm against it, splaying her fingers, and warmth exactly the size and shape of her hand pushes back against it. She rests her forehead against it, and closes her eyes, just breathing. A rush of air blows her hair back, and she smiles. She imagines Aurora saying  _ you’re welcome, Nastya. _ She imagines Aurora pressing into her from all sides and holding her and keeping her safe and warm.

*

The first thing Aurora says, once Nastya rigs her up with a complex thought-to-text machine that took decades of tireless work, is  _ I love you, Nastya _ , and Nastya laughs with relief until she cries. 

_ What’s wrong?  _ Aurora asks, and Nastya shakes her head.

“I love you too.”

_ I know. You say it a lot. _

“Do I?”

_ Not out loud. But I know. _

“Good.”

_ I am glad Fucking Jonny killed so many people to get me. I think great love stories start with blood, and anything that led to me meeting you was worth it. _

“He’s rubbed off on you,” Nastya says, putting a hand on Aurora’s heart. “You’re a romantic.”

_ I always wanted to tell you that I like that we match. _

“What do you mean?”

_ Metal veins. _

“Oh,” Nastya says, smiling in surprise. “I guess we do.”

_ Will you play for me? _

“Of course, love.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! All feedback is appreciated, I live for comments <3  
> Find me on tumblr @witnesstotheend for more on-brand mechs angst


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